MUSC Children's Health General Surgery at Summey Medical Pavilion

Dr. Christian Streck graduated from Duke University in 1994 with a BS in biology and an AB in history. He received his medical degree from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1999. He completed general surgery residency in Memphis, Tennessee in 2006. This included a research fellowship studying children's cancer at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He completed pediatric surgery fellowship at LeBonhuer Children's Hospital in Memphis in 2008. He is currently board certified in general and pediatric surgery. Dr. Streck is a professor of surgery and pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is currently the pediatric trauma medical director and the general surgery residency program director. Dr. Streck's research interests include pediatric trauma and minimally invasive surgery. His clinical interests include minimally invasive surgery for a variety of conditions of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. His specific interests include cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, pectus excavatum, trauma, appendicitis, and ovarian masses.

Dr. Aaron Cunningham is a board-certified pediatric surgeon in Charleston, South Carolina who maintains a comprehensive practice in pediatric general and thoracic surgery including the surgical care of neonates, pediatric surgical oncology, and minimally invasive surgery in children with congenital anomalies such as congenital pulmonary airway malformations (CPAM), esophageal atresia (EA/TEF), diaphragmatic hernia or a rare hepatobiliary disorder known as biliary atresia. He was trained with a highly-specialized focus in minimally invasive techniques for small neonates and believes in the comprehensive, multidisciplinary care of children with the goal of improving health over the course of a lifetime. Dr. Cunningham's treatment philosophy is to deliver the specific care that each individual child needs to allow them to live better over the course of their lifetime, as he would for his own family. With the state-of-the-art facilities available at the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital, he is dedicated to providing care, specific to children, that cannot be delivered anywhere else in South Carolina and beyond. Dr. Cunningham was born and grew up in New York where he studied biological engineering at Cornell University. He developed an interest in medicine while working as a clinical neurophysiologist in Georgia and went on to attend medical school there at the Medical College of Georgia. Surgical residency brought him to the west coast where he trained at Oregon Health \& Science University in Portland. During his time there he developed an acute interest in pediatric surgery and completed a research fellowship in pediatric surgical outcomes. His research time was productive and predominantly focused on trauma induced coagulopathy in children and systems approaches to improving pediatric surgical care. Dr. Cunningham then completed his fellowship training in pediatric surgery at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford University. The highly-specialized training that he received while at Stanford predominantly focused on minimally invasive surgical techniques in small neonates including minimally invasive approaches to esophageal atresia, CPAM, diaphragmatic hernia, and an advanced endosurgical technique called peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM), which was performed on children in only one other center in the country. Dr. Cunningham joins MUSC as an assistant professor of surgery in 2023. He is passionate about the care of all children but maintains a clinical focus in a rare hepatobiliary disorder known as biliary atresia where the bile ducts form abnormally. He believes that complex diseases, like biliary atresia, are best managed in places where coordinated multidisciplinary care can be offered, like the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital. His research interests include biliary atresia, pediatric trauma and defining systematic barriers to improving pediatric surgical care through quality improvement.

Dr. Laura Hollinger is a board-certified pediatric surgeon in Charleston, South Carolina who maintains a comprehensive practice in pediatric general surgery covering a wide range of clinical areas including congenital anomalies, neonatal surgery, prenatal consultations, pediatric trauma and emergency care, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), and minimally invasive pectus excavatum repair. She treats patients across the spectrum of pediatric general surgery including hernias, ovarian disorders, and cancer, and performs surgeries in a minimally invasive manner. Dr Hollinger's treatment philosophy is to treat every patient as though they were her own in a patient-centered approach. Dr Hollinger received her undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, and then her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston at the McGovern Medical School. She completed her internship and residency in general surgery at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, including a two-year research fellowship where she studied critical illness and the distant organ effects of kidney ischemia-reperfusion injury. Dr Hollinger completed her fellowship training in pediatric surgery in 2017 at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Texas. While in Houston, her training included both open and minimally invasive approaches to neonatal and pediatric general surgical diseases. Dr Hollinger joined MUSC as an assistant professor of surgery in 2017. Her primary leadership role at the Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital is as Medical Director of the pediatric ECMO program where she leads a team of experts in neonatal and pediatric critical illness. Through their comprehensive multidisciplinary approach and dedication to exceptional patient care, the Pediatric ECMO program achieved the Platinum Level ELSO Award for Excellence in Life Support, a designation held by only the top tier of children's hospitals across the United States. Her research interests include congenital diaphragmatic hernia, prenatal consultation, and pediatric ECMO support during critical illness.

Dr. Aaron Lesher maintains a comprehensive practice in pediatric surgery, treating neonatal, pediatric, and adolescent surgical conditions, including ECMO, anorectal anomalies, thoracic surgery, pectus excavatum, esophageal atresia, and many other congenital and acquired anomalies. Dr. Lesher specializes further in pediatric burn surgery and leads the Children's Hospital Burn Team as the Pediatric Burn Medical Director. Working in concert with the adult burn program, Dr. Lesher and colleagues have created a Comprehensive Burn Center, bringing the full breadth of care to burned children, including innovative regenerative medicine, minimally invasive burn wound debridement, and reconstruction. He runs the burn clinic and performs a wide variety of burn wound care procedures. Dr. Lesher leads an expert burn team, comprised of nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, child life, critical care, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and many others aimed to improve the lives of burn-injured children. Dr. Lesher also leads the Adolescent Bariatric Surgery Program at MUSC. Focusing on the unique needs of this vulnerable teenage population, Dr. Lesher performs advanced minimally-invasive surgery for obese teens and works with a specialized team of adolescent psychologists, obesity medicine doctors, dietitians, and gastroenterologists who provide the full breadth of expertise needed to deliver optimal care for this population. MUSC is one of the only adolescent bariatric programs in the Southeast accredited by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Dr. Lesher's research interests are focused on improving access to care for children in SC through telemedicine. He is one of the only pediatric surgeons in the country who has been awarded a K23 from the National Institutes of Health to advance the use of smartphones in the outpatient care of pediatric burns. He has written more than 50 papers and book chapters and has mentored many students and residents throughout his career. When not at the hospital, Dr. Lesher can be found spending time with his wife, two children, a dog, cat, and two rabbits. He is an avid musician and also enjoys gardening, playing golf and tennis, and holds leadership roles in numerous community organizations.